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I'm not the target audience for these features, and don't want to speculate on behalf of others, so I'll just focus on my own needs... Live Speech: I actually

I'm not the target audience for these features, and don't want to speculate on behalf of others, so I'll just focus on my own needs... Live Speech: I actually answer unknown phone numbers (usually) and would like text-to-speech on my calls because I've started to get concerned about what can be done, fraud-wise, with even small samples of my voice. So in this case, using another's voice is fine, even preferred. (Edit: I suppose I'd actually prefer a voice-changer here, which is less related to this accessibility feature. But I think Apple is unlikely to do that.) Personal Voice: When my girlfriend texts me when I'm out with my AirPods, I think we'd both like me to hear her message in her actual voice rather than Siri's. This feature doesn't allow for that yet, but the pieces are all there. Finally, Apple needs to detect and tell me when I'm listening to a synthetic voice, including when it's not being generated by Apple. There's fraud potential here. I'm clearly excited about this tech, but I want to know more on this front.

kwertyoowiyop 3y ago
I was thinking it would be fun just to have Siri use a Personal Voice, but your idea is better! And it could just offer to make your Personal Voice data available along with your Contact picture.
- bnj 3y ago
  While that sounds like it would unlock some very cool experiences it also scares me to think about the potential abuses of making personalized voice models fairly easily available. It seems like the sort of thing that would need to stay secure on your own device. It would be great to see some kind of middle ground where a text to speech mechanism would generate audio output and send that, rather than make the model itself available.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
thiht 3y ago
> Personal Voice: When my girlfriend texts me when I'm out with my AirPods, I think we'd both like me to hear her message in her actual voice rather than Siri's. That's genius!
- hosteur 3y ago
  Also a bit creepy.
- packetlost 3y ago
  I think I'd rather just eliminate the ringing portion of a phone call (when I have airpods in) and instead just let a trusted list of contacts talk directly into my ear (1-way) until I "answer" and open up a 2-way channel.
  - zamadatix 3y ago
    The "answer" button seems to serve to also say "I'm ready to listen" as much as it does to say "I'm ready to say". IMO this kind of goal is better covered by voice messages, or, at least, starting with a voice message. This allows the receiver to pick when they are ready to hear it (including immediately), replay it as needed, and choose when they respond (if at all). Many of these are benefits for the sender as much as the receiver.
    - packetlost 3y ago
      Let's have both. If you have it on do-not-disturb or don't pick it, it goes to a voice message with speech-to-text.
  - kevinsundar 3y ago
    Isn't this the walkie talkie feature built into the Apple Watch? Could be ported over to iPhone.
    - MagicMoonlight 3y ago
      Yeah I want “Apple Intercom” or something where me and my girlfriend can have linked airpods and it’s like a spy movie. Perfect for communicating in loud places or crowds without requiring data.
masklinn 3y ago
> Personal Voice: When my girlfriend texts me when I'm out with my AirPods, I think we'd both like me to hear her message in her actual voice rather than Siri's. (This feature doesn't allow for that yet, but the pieces are all there.) Neat idea, same with carplay, having it reliably imitate the voice of the person who sent the message would make it a lot nicer. Though they would need to get all the TTS and intonation right first, which IME is not the case, I think having the right voice but the wrong intonation entirely would be one hell of an uncanny valley.
- NoGravitas 3y ago
  When my computer talks to me, it needs to be in Majel Barrett's voice. Anything else is just not acceptable.
  - xen2xen1 3y ago
    Surely Shatner has sold his voice already like Bruce Willis did? I'd pay to hear my morning information read in the voice of the shat, in the format of a captain's log.
smileybarry 3y ago
> Finally, Apple needs to detect and tell me when I'm listening to a synthetic voice. There's already some version of this in "Hey Siri" detection -- if I record myself with a prompt and play it back, my HomePod briefly wakes up at the "Hey Siri" but turns off mid-prompt. I guessed it was some loudspeaker detection using the microphone array, but it could be a mix of both?
somebody78978 3y ago
> When my girlfriend texts me when I'm out with my AirPods, I think we'd both like me to hear her message in her actual voice rather than Siri's And then you can use voice to text to text her back, and she can hear it in your voice! It's just like a phone call from 30 years ago, but one that requires infinitely more processing power!
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > It's just like a phone call from 30 years ago, but one that requires infinitely more processing power There are folks who couldn’t, for a variety of reasons, do that thirty years ago. This feature is for them. The rest of us get to e.g. more naturally text a response to a call we’re listening into on a flight.
  - reaperducer 3y ago
    Can't you already do that with iMessage's voice delivery feature?
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > Can't you already do that with iMessage's voice delivery feature? Voice memos? No. I would have to, at some point, speak it. If you’re referring to text-to-speech, there is a difference between having your speech read in a different voice and your own.
- reaperducer 3y ago
  It's just like a phone call from 30 years ago, but one that requires infinitely more processing power! And latency!
- Someone 3y ago
  On the plus side it would use less bandwidth. That phone call from 30 years ago probably used (ballpark) 64kilobits/second. This could use a lot less and have higher audio quality. See it as data compression on the wire.
MourYother 3y ago
> When my girlfriend texts me when I'm out with my AirPods, I think we'd both like me to hear her message in her actual voice rather than Siri's. Other consequences of this feature: - typos and autocorrect become even more hilarious - you can still use her voice after you break up; heck, you probably don't ever need to date the person - at this point: why wouldn't you pick Scarlett Johansson?
- microtherion 3y ago
  > you can still use her voice after you break up Which is potentially quite problematic as you could abuse this for all sorts of social engineering purposes.
- post_break 3y ago
  I was thinking this exact thought. I want Samantha reading my notifications. I desperately want an AI like her to be able to talk to. ChatGPT is getting there.
jansommer 3y ago
A voice changer for unknown or blocked caller id's is actually a great idea. Just looked in F-Droid and the Play Store, where there seems to be no such app. Preventing callers from sampling my voice is a concern I did not know I have.
- elicash 3y ago
  A couple weeks ago ago, I looked into building it for iPhone, but there was no way in iOS to integrate it. So now I'm just hoping for Apple to do it. This article was what prompted the thought: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/03/05/ai-voice-scam/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/03/05/ai-voic...
  - jansommer 3y ago
    Doesn't seem to be possible on Android either unfortunately. One might be able to do it by writing a custom dialer - scope creep x100.
quitit 3y ago
>because I've started to get concerned about what can be done, fraud-wise, with even small samples of my voice. This vector was recently highlighted as a weakness of the Australian "Voiceprint" system(1) It's also an excellent point to make that these tools can be useful for everyone. I find myself using a number of the accessibility tools simply to speed up some of my common interactions with the phone and watch. I've also noticed that these technologies end up in other products. For example livetext is now a standard feature on macOS/iOS yet it's an accessibility feature originating in the screenreader to deal with text flattened in images. This technology sharing also gives us a bit of a preview of what they're working on (e.g. AR) (1) https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/mar/16/voice-system-used-to-verify-identity-by-centrelink-can-be-fooled-by-ai https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/mar/16/voice-sys...
MagicMoonlight 3y ago
That would be great for messaging somewhere quiet where you can’t talk

kwertyoowiyop 3y ago

I was thinking it would be fun just to have Siri use a Personal Voice, but your idea is better! And it could just offer to make your Personal Voice data available along with your Contact picture.

bnj 3y ago
While that sounds like it would unlock some very cool experiences it also scares me to think about the potential abuses of making personalized voice models fairly easily available. It seems like the sort of thing that would need to stay secure on your own device. It would be great to see some kind of middle ground where a text to speech mechanism would generate audio output and send that, rather than make the model itself available.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

thiht 3y ago

> Personal Voice: When my girlfriend texts me when I'm out with my AirPods, I think we'd both like me to hear her message in her actual voice rather than Siri's. That's genius!

hosteur 3y ago
Also a bit creepy.
packetlost 3y ago
I think I'd rather just eliminate the ringing portion of a phone call (when I have airpods in) and instead just let a trusted list of contacts talk directly into my ear (1-way) until I "answer" and open up a 2-way channel.
- zamadatix 3y ago
  The "answer" button seems to serve to also say "I'm ready to listen" as much as it does to say "I'm ready to say". IMO this kind of goal is better covered by voice messages, or, at least, starting with a voice message. This allows the receiver to pick when they are ready to hear it (including immediately), replay it as needed, and choose when they respond (if at all). Many of these are benefits for the sender as much as the receiver.
  - packetlost 3y ago
    Let's have both. If you have it on do-not-disturb or don't pick it, it goes to a voice message with speech-to-text.
- kevinsundar 3y ago
  Isn't this the walkie talkie feature built into the Apple Watch? Could be ported over to iPhone.
  - MagicMoonlight 3y ago
    Yeah I want “Apple Intercom” or something where me and my girlfriend can have linked airpods and it’s like a spy movie. Perfect for communicating in loud places or crowds without requiring data.

masklinn 3y ago

> Personal Voice: When my girlfriend texts me when I'm out with my AirPods, I think we'd both like me to hear her message in her actual voice rather than Siri's. (This feature doesn't allow for that yet, but the pieces are all there.) Neat idea, same with carplay, having it reliably imitate the voice of the person who sent the message would make it a lot nicer. Though they would need to get all the TTS and intonation right first, which IME is not the case, I think having the right voice but the wrong intonation entirely would be one hell of an uncanny valley.

NoGravitas 3y ago
When my computer talks to me, it needs to be in Majel Barrett's voice. Anything else is just not acceptable.
- xen2xen1 3y ago
  Surely Shatner has sold his voice already like Bruce Willis did? I'd pay to hear my morning information read in the voice of the shat, in the format of a captain's log.

smileybarry 3y ago

> Finally, Apple needs to detect and tell me when I'm listening to a synthetic voice. There's already some version of this in "Hey Siri" detection -- if I record myself with a prompt and play it back, my HomePod briefly wakes up at the "Hey Siri" but turns off mid-prompt. I guessed it was some loudspeaker detection using the microphone array, but it could be a mix of both?

somebody78978 3y ago

> When my girlfriend texts me when I'm out with my AirPods, I think we'd both like me to hear her message in her actual voice rather than Siri's And then you can use voice to text to text her back, and she can hear it in your voice! It's just like a phone call from 30 years ago, but one that requires infinitely more processing power!

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> It's just like a phone call from 30 years ago, but one that requires infinitely more processing power There are folks who couldn’t, for a variety of reasons, do that thirty years ago. This feature is for them. The rest of us get to e.g. more naturally text a response to a call we’re listening into on a flight.
- reaperducer 3y ago
  Can't you already do that with iMessage's voice delivery feature?
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > Can't you already do that with iMessage's voice delivery feature? Voice memos? No. I would have to, at some point, speak it. If you’re referring to text-to-speech, there is a difference between having your speech read in a different voice and your own.
reaperducer 3y ago
It's just like a phone call from 30 years ago, but one that requires infinitely more processing power! And latency!
Someone 3y ago
On the plus side it would use less bandwidth. That phone call from 30 years ago probably used (ballpark) 64kilobits/second. This could use a lot less and have higher audio quality. See it as data compression on the wire.

MourYother 3y ago

> When my girlfriend texts me when I'm out with my AirPods, I think we'd both like me to hear her message in her actual voice rather than Siri's. Other consequences of this feature: - typos and autocorrect become even more hilarious - you can still use her voice after you break up; heck, you probably don't ever need to date the person - at this point: why wouldn't you pick Scarlett Johansson?

microtherion 3y ago
> you can still use her voice after you break up Which is potentially quite problematic as you could abuse this for all sorts of social engineering purposes.
post_break 3y ago
I was thinking this exact thought. I want Samantha reading my notifications. I desperately want an AI like her to be able to talk to. ChatGPT is getting there.

jansommer 3y ago

A voice changer for unknown or blocked caller id's is actually a great idea. Just looked in F-Droid and the Play Store, where there seems to be no such app. Preventing callers from sampling my voice is a concern I did not know I have.

elicash 3y ago
A couple weeks ago ago, I looked into building it for iPhone, but there was no way in iOS to integrate it. So now I'm just hoping for Apple to do it. This article was what prompted the thought: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/03/05/ai-voice-scam/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/03/05/ai-voic...
- jansommer 3y ago
  Doesn't seem to be possible on Android either unfortunately. One might be able to do it by writing a custom dialer - scope creep x100.

quitit 3y ago

>because I've started to get concerned about what can be done, fraud-wise, with even small samples of my voice. This vector was recently highlighted as a weakness of the Australian "Voiceprint" system(1) It's also an excellent point to make that these tools can be useful for everyone. I find myself using a number of the accessibility tools simply to speed up some of my common interactions with the phone and watch. I've also noticed that these technologies end up in other products. For example livetext is now a standard feature on macOS/iOS yet it's an accessibility feature originating in the screenreader to deal with text flattened in images. This technology sharing also gives us a bit of a preview of what they're working on (e.g. AR) (1) https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/mar/16/voice-system-used-to-verify-identity-by-centrelink-can-be-fooled-by-ai https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/mar/16/voice-sys...

MagicMoonlight 3y ago

That would be great for messaging somewhere quiet where you can’t talk